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I agree with Bob. My Media-PC runs 24x7 and I have Win-7 spin down the drives after 30 min of idle. It even spins down the external eSATA array.

I have been reading about "away mode" in Win 7. Is this what you are doing? I have Win 7 installed on this also and was told in a automation forum that "away mode" is all I need to allow streaming from a idle PC. I am unclear though if "away mode" is all Win 7 or does it have to be supported in the PC's hardware.

Current owner of the last/best AmPro on the planet. The mighty 4600HD, and it's still running...better than Barco's, especially southern ones.

I have been reading about "away mode" in Win 7. Is this what you are doing?

Sorry, I don't know anything about "away mode".
My Media-PC runs 24x7, fully awake. In Control Panel/Power Options/Advanced Settings there is an option to set an idle time to spin down the HDD's. I have that set to 30 min. I have two internal drives and four external drives attached by eSATA. Win-7 spins down any internal/external drive after 30 min of idle time and spins them back up one at a time as they are accessed.

- kelson h

The bitterness of poor quality lasts long after the sweetness of the low price is forgotten . . . life is too short to drink bad wine

Right now I don't have one single movie on this server. I plan to start backing up on Friday. However, tonight I did enable "away mode". After I get a few movies backed up I will try to access it from a borrowed media player to see if it will stream from that state.
It is supposed to.

Current owner of the last/best AmPro on the planet. The mighty 4600HD, and it's still running...better than Barco's, especially southern ones.

I've had success with wake on lan in the past (with XP), but you have to send the magic packet before it wakes. It won't wake when you just try to access it.

Alternatively, to save power you can schedule your pc to boot at certain times on a schedule you set in the bios (this should be an option on most motherboards), and schedule it to shut down automatically with the task scheduler. You'd have to manually boot outside of those times though.

Right now I don't have one single movie on this server. I plan to start backing up on Friday. However, tonight I did enable "away mode". After I get a few movies backed up I will try to access it from a borrowed media player to see if it will stream from that state.
It is supposed to.

I've been having so many other problems with the ripping process that I completely forgot to report back about "away mode". I can tell you that it does work. My Win 7 work station/ server wakes right up when my borrowed Western Digital media player looks for a file. The only down side is you have to initiate a request twice if waking it back up is required. At least that's what I have to do with this WD. It will quickly report that it's unavailable before the server is fully back to life. Not worried. That's something that can be overcome in automation programming.

Current owner of the last/best AmPro on the planet. The mighty 4600HD, and it's still running...better than Barco's, especially southern ones.